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Economic Reform and Military Technology
in Soviet Security Policy

by Matthew Evangelista

Volume 2, Number 1

Mikhail Gorbachev’s “new thinking” in security policy
has been greeted with some measure of ambivalence in the
West. There is a suspicion that the new line in foreign policy
is intended merely to provide a temporary “breathing space,”
so that the internal program of reform, known as perestroika,
can have a chance to revive the stagnant Soviet economy.
Then, the argument goes, the Soviets will be back for another
round of competition with the West, which will have
meanwhile dropped its guard in anticipation of a long period
of Soviet moderation. In this view, perestroika is a kind of
fitness program for the Russian bear, making it stronger, but
no less dangerous.

A key component of the “breathing space” argument is
the notion that the Soviet military supports the reforms in the
expectation that a reinvigorated economy will provide a firm
foundation for the development of advanced military tech-
nologies in the future. Civilian reformers are assumed to
agree with the long-term goal of a “leaner, meaner” high-tech
Soviet military, and to believe that only a temporary shift in
resources is necessary to provide the technological base for
the military developments of the next century.

The breathing space argument assumes more consensus
between the military and the civilian reformers than probab-
ly exists. In fact, a wide range of divergent views is repre-
sented in the current Soviet debate on national security. At
the risk of oversimplification, we can identify three schools
of thought: the “‘new thinkers” advocate a permanent reorien-
tation away from militarized approaches to international
security in favor of economic interdependence and “common
security,” and a priority allocation of resources to domestic
economic development; the “technocrats” favor at most a
short-term reallocation of investment resources to the
militarily-relevant sectors of the civilian economy in order to
develop the prerequisites for advanced-technology weapons;

January, 1989

and the “old thinkers” want to continue emphasizing military
spending and believe that economic mobilization in support
of weapons development can meet any foreseeable
challenges.

The most influential civilian reformers appear to be firm-
ly located in the first camp. The military is divided between
the second and third, with a heavy emphasis on economic
mobilization even for those concerned about a high-tech arms
race. Contrary to the breathing space argument, which puts
both the civilian reformers and the military in the “tech-
nocratic”’ camp, the two groups appear to be in sharp disagree-
ment on fundamental issues. Moreover, there is little sign that
the new thinkers and the old thinkers will converge on the
technocratic approach even as a least common denominator.

If this analysis is accurate, it calls into question the fear
that a successful perestroika will produce a more dangerous
Soviet rival. If Gorbachev and his new thinkers have their
way, Soviet foreign policy will continue to evolve in the
direction of cooperation and moderation. New thinkers reject
the traditional Soviet overemphasis on the military, high-tech
or otherwise. Therefore, they are unlikely to convince the
military to join a coalition in support of perestroika. The
prospects for reform in Soviet security policy hinge, then, on
Gorbachev’s ability to weaken the power of the military as
an institution, while broadening the definition of security to
encompass political, diplomatic, and economic factors. Al-
though the final outcome depends at least in part on forces
beyond Soviet borders, Gorbachev has set out on a deter-
mined course to achieve his objectives.

The Civilian Critique

Reform-oriented civilians have long expressed concern
about the effect of economic stagnation on Soviet security.

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Indeed, warnings about the USSR’s technological shortcom-
ings and their military implications predate Gorbachev’s
policy of glasnost’. Civilian critics intend their warnings to
appeal to the traditional Soviet preoccupation with security,
but their prescriptions will not necessarily attract the military.
As they delve deeper into the sources of Soviet technological
backwardness, the civilians make clear that their solutions en-
tail much more than a short-term reorientation to civilian
technology. Moreover, as they emphasize the importance of
a strong civilian sector, they gradually reveal their view that
economic strength itself is a key component of security. The
new thinkers may be trying to win over the military to sup-
port their reforms, but if their vision of economic security is
achieved, they will not want to risk it by squandering new
resources on another arms race.

One of the first writers to use the security argument to
advance economic reforms was Fedor Burlatskii, political
commentator for Literaturnaia gazeta. In 1984, he published
an article on “the new technological revolution,” in which he
praised the technical accomplishments of an “inexhaustible
human genius.” At the same time, he argued, “‘it is impossible
to escape a heavy feeling of anxiety, seeing where and how
the capitalist centers of industrial power are directing these
accomplishments” — an obvious allusion to the military ap-
plications of advanced technology. Writing of the economic
competition between the United States, Japan, and Western
Europe, he argued that “a restructuring [perestroika] of the
entire industrial map of the world has begun.” A hierarchy is
forming, with those countries that have mastered the “latest
technology” and developed the “most modern branches of in-
dustry” at the top.

What does this have to do with Soviet security policy?
One needs to read between the lines, but not much. Burlatskii
writes that it is “already possible to see how painfully those
who lag behind will be beaten.” He seems still to be describ-
ing the economic competition among capitalist countries, but
his choice of words unmistakably evokes Stalin’s 1931
speech to Soviet industrial managers: “Do you want our
Socialist fatherland to be beaten and to lose its inde-
pendence?... We are fifty or a hundred years behind the ad-
vanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten
years. Either we do it or they crush us.”” Burlatskii makes the
security implications of his argument clear when he asks
whether it is necessary to remind the reader “of the influence
that the first industrial revolution of the 18th century had on
the whole world.” Europe, the first to undergo that revolution,
“occupied the dominant position in the world and subor-
dinated whole continents to itself.” The United States was the
first to undergo the “second revolution, called the scientific-

Literaturnaia gazeta, October 31, 1984, p. 14.

technological one,” following World War II. “Relying on its
military and industrial power,” argues Burlatskii, the U.S.
“seized the leadership of the non-socialist world.”

According to Burlatskii, a new technological revolution
began in the mid-1970s, with microelectronics at its heart. He
asks his readers to “imagine” what it would be like for
microcomputers to play a major role in the domestic
economy, and goes on to describe images that are com-
monplace in the United States today: children’s video games,
computerized money-dispensing machines at banks,
electronic mail, and so forth. Perhaps not all of his readers
realize that Burlatskii is describing the contemporary situa-
tion in the non-socialist industrialized world. All of them,
however, are aware that he is not describing the Soviet Union.

Soviet academic writers have pursued specific analyses
of the relationship between civilian and military use of com-
puters in the United States. They have argued that the
widespread use of computers in the U.S. military owes to their
relatively low cost; that under present circumstances develop-
ment of software constitutes the limiting factor on further
growth in the military use of computers; and that develop-
ment of software in turn depends on increasing the effective-
ness and productivity of computer programmers. One article
maintains that the problem of military software development
in the U.S. is perceived there as a crisis, which legislators,
military officials, industrialists, and other “leaders of the
highest rank are energetically occupied with surmounting.”>
One infers from the article that the Soviet Union has a long
way to go before it can experience the luxury of sucha “crisis”
in military software development. The prerequisites are still
missing: low cost and wide use of computer systems and a
large supply of trained computer programmers. Indeed,
within the military itself the use of computers is not very ex-
tensive. Itis apparently a novelty, forexample, for air-defense
batteries to employ computer simulations for training pur-
poses or for air force units to do simple computer modeling
of air combat and bombing raids.*

Although their arguments stress military implications,
many Soviet analysts believe that the computer problem must
be dealt with first in the civilian economy. The director of the
Academy of Science’s new Department of Information
Science, Computer Technology and Automation is Evgenii
Velikhov, vice president of the Academy and deputy director
of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy. Along with cor-
responding member A.P. Ershov, he has instituted a new
program to expand access to computers in Soviet society. Er-
shov is responsible for educational programs to develop com-
puter literacy in schools. Civilian computer experts appear to
be arguing that the USSR must improve its level of computer

1

2 Quoted in David Holloway, The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), pp. 6-7.

3 V.V. Lipaev and A.I. Potapov, “Programmnoe obespechenie dlia EVM voennogo naznacheniia,” SShA: Ekonomika, Politika, Ideologiia, No. 4 (1985),
pp. 113-118, at p. 114. See also I.N. Loshilov, Vychislitel’naia tekhnika v voennom dele (Moscow: Izd. DOSAAF, 1987).

4 V. Platonov, “Metodiku meniaet EVM,” Krasnaia zvezda, February 28, 1987, p. 2; A. Iudin, “Komp’iuter ili karandash?” Krasnaia zvezda, September 7,

1988, p. 1.

development in the economy at large before it can hope to
compete in the sphere of advanced military technology.”

Some Soviet critics argue that the task is even greater
than Velikhov and Ershov believe, that the attitudes and
habits of Soviet workers are inappropriate for the computer
age. As I. Radkevich, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical
Sciences, writes, “the basic problem today does not consist
of an absence among the majority of workers of a ‘second
[computer] literacy.”” Rather, he argues, there is something
wrong with the “first” literacy: “not the ability to read and
write (that, thank God, we’ve all learned), [but] the profes-
sional training for a chosen field of work, be it technology or
cooking, medicine or firefighting. It is necessary,” he main-
tains, “to fight first of all not against computer illiteracy, but
against unprofessionalism.” He criticizes (without naming
names) those who favor the wide-scale introduction of com-
puter courses into school, maintaining that the material and
methodological foundations are inadequate for such a
program to succeed. Before learning computer skills, Rad-
kevich argues, Soviet workers and students must learn math.
Even more importantly, they must develop a responsible at-
titude toward their work.

Thus, Soviet civilians who believe the USSR needs
reforms in order to enhance its security offer a range of
prescriptions: from increasing computer literacy in society to
broad changes in the economic system and a fundamental
transformation in work attitudes.

Military Views

It is highly implausible that the military have come to a
consensus on the need for restraint in military spending in
order to support perestroika and provide for long-term
military-technical advances. Although military writers often
invoke Lenin to the effect that military power depends direct-
ly on the overall strength of the economy, they vary in their
estimation of what contribution the economy should make to
the military sphere. Most analysts appear to embrace a mix
of old thinking and technocratic views, although one oc-
casionally encounters arguments compatible with the new
thinking as well. It should be emphasized that these labels are
used only to characterize different points of view found in the
Soviet military literature. There is no evidence to suggest the
existence of self-defined groups promoting coherent
programs along these lines.

“Old thinkers” were naturally prominent during the
Brezhnev period and earlier. They typically argued for
reorienting the economy in order to build a reserve of material

Matthew Evangelista

supplies that would be needed in a future war and to make
preparations for a quick transfer from civilian to military
production in the event of war. They pointed to the lessons of
the war against Nazi Germany and even the Russian Civil
War to make the case for preparing the Soviet economy now
for a rapid transfer to war footing if necessary in the future.
Their arguments were often accompanied by explicit
demands for higher military spending.

Other Soviet military analysts, even during the Brezhnev
years, recognized that military requirements cannot be met
simply by throwing money at them. Their writings follow the
trend in Soviet civilian analyses of the economy as a whole
toward emphasizing “intensive” over “extensive” develop-
ment (raising the productivity of existing inputs instead of in-
creasing inputs). Such “technocrats” have tended to stress the
need for optimal use of limited resources in the military
sphere, and to note the importance of “using the achievements
of scientific-technical progress for the development of con-
temporary military technology.”®

The technocratic view comes through most clearly in the
writings of Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, former chief of the
General Staff. He has made the argument several times in
print that “for the first time in history, the main opposing sides
have created a surplus of military, and especially nuclear,
potentials.” He expresses confidence in the ability of either
side to retaliate after a nuclear first strike but seems concerned
about “rapid changes in the development of conventional
means of destruction” and the “appearance in the developed
countries of automated reconnaissance-strike complexes,
long-range, highly accurate combat systems with remote-
controlled guidance, unpiloted flying machines, and qualita-
tively new electronic control systems.” He argues that these
new systems, rather than nuclear weapons, should be the
focus of Soviet military efforts.

In contrast to the technocrats, the “new thinkers” give
priority to a high level of technical development and skills in
the civilian economy as a whole. When Ogarkov combines
his warnings about the West’s new advanced-technology
conventional weapons with remarks stressing the importance
of “the state’s economic system and capabilities” and its
“level of development of science and technology,” he seems
to adopt a reformist perspective. !° But Ogarkov is also
thought to have pushed for sharp increases in Soviet military
spending, a position inconsistent with the new thinkers’ in-
tent to favor the civilian economy.

Some elements of what might constitute a reformist
perspective appeared in an article by Major General M.
Iasiukov in the journal of the Main Political Administration

“Vstupitel’noe slovo Prezidenta Akademii nauk SSSR Akademika A.P. Aleksandrova,” Vestnik Akademii Nauk SSSR, No. 6 (1983), p. 11; E.P. Velikhov,
‘‘Personal’nye EVM — segodniashniaia praktika i perspektivy,” Vestnik Akademii Nauk SSSR, No. 8 (1984), pp. 3-9.
I. Radkevich, “O komp’iutere — bez difirambov,” Literaturnaia gazeta, September 17, 1986, p. 10.

Colonel S. Bartenev, “Ekonomika i voennaia moshch’,” Kommunist Vooruzhennykh Sil, No. 14, 1980, esp. pp. 68-69.

Major General A. Gurov, “Effektivnost’ materialnogo obespecheniia,” Krasnaia zvezda, December 9, 1982, pp. 2-3; see also Ia. Riabov,
“Nauchno-tekhnicheskii progress i effektivnost’ proizvodstva,” Planovoe khoziaistvo, No. 12 (1979), pp. 3-10.

N.V. Ogarkov, Istoriia uchit bditel’ nosti (Moscow: Voenizdat, 1985), pp. 88-89; Krasnaia zvezda, May 9, 1984.

2)
6
7 Major General M. Cherednichenko, “Sovremennaia voina i ekonomika,” Kommunist Vooruzhennykh Sil, No. 18 (September 1971), esp. pp. 23-25;
8
9
1

0 Ogarkov, Istoriia, p. 43.

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(MPA) of the Soviet armed forces in October 1985. What dis-
tinguishes Iasiukov’s discussion is his attention to the need
for wide-scale adoption of computer technology in the Soviet
military, and especially his apparent contention that a prereq-
uisite for such adoption is a high level of civilian progress in
this sphere. He explicitly associates his proposals with the
political leadership’s rhetoric on economic reform. He
characterizes developments in computer technology,
robotics, and electronics as “basic catalysts of military-tech-
nical progress,” and implies that advances will not come from
the military sector alone: “the current stage of military-tech-
nical competition, imposed on us by the imperialists,
demands a high level of development of the most promising
(perspektivnykh) branches of industry, the most up-to-date
technology, and a highly qualified work force.”!' The
problem with using such articles as an independent indicator
of support for Gorbachev’s new thinking is that they are typi-
cally written by political officers of the MPA or professors at
military academies (as in this case) and are published primari-
ly in order to drum up support within the military for the
Party’s policy of reform.

Support for Restraint?

Indeed, few in the Soviet military appear to have explicit-
ly adopted such reformist views. Even articles that some
analysts have identified as supporting the notion of near-term
restraint for the sake of longer-term technological advances
are at best ambiguous, and more often advocate a combina-
tion of old thinking and technocratic views. A case in point
is an article in the Military-Historical Journal by Colonel
V.A. Zubkov. The author invokes Lenin’s views on the im-
portance of the economy, and selectively quotes Gorbachev,
but in such a way as to support the traditional goals of the
Soviet military: an emphasis on heavy industry, transport, and
the “creation of large-scale reserves” of fuel and stocks of
weapons. He quotes Lenin’s injunction that the USSR should
not permit “the slightest weakening in the task of equipping
the Red Army with 100% of its needs.” This hardly sounds
like a new thinker’s desire to impose restraints on Soviet
military spending. Nor is Zubkov a technocrat, concerned
about the USSR’s ability to compete with U.S. high-tech
weapons. He claims that the Soviet Union’s present “level of
development of science and technology permits [it] success-
fully to resolve the most complicated technical tasks and in a
short time to create any kind of weapon on which the aggres-
sors stake their hopes.”! An editorial in the same journal
repeated some of the rhetoric of Gorbachev’s reform
proposals, but waxed far more enthusiastic about a mix of

policies favored by old thinkers and technocrats. In keeping
with technocratic arguments, the article demanded the most
advanced weapons and insisted on greater participation of
scientists in the military sphere to prevent a technological
breakthrough by the opponent. More consistent with the old
thinking, however, it praised the Party’s putative support for
“a broad program of growth of the main branches of heavy
industry,” and for the development of machine-building,
transport, and the natural resources of Siberia. The article
stressed the importance of preparing the economy for a quick
transition from peace to a war footing; unlike the technocratic
arguments of the Ogarkov type, it emphasized nuclear
weapons, maintaining that wide-scale economic mobilization
was all the more important because a nuclear attack by the
opponent could destroy the USSR’s “military-economic
potential” at the very beginning of a war. Like the old think-
ing, the article played up the “enemy image” of the United
States: the threat of a sudden U.S. nuclear attack, U.S. striv-
ing for military-technical superiority, the U.S. government as
captive of a military-industrial complex, and so forth. Having
emphasized the threatening nature of the opponent and the
immediacy of the threat, it could hardly advocate any
restraint, short-term or otherwise, on the part of the ussr.?

The only prominent Soviet military official to have made
a point of emphasizing restraint in Soviet military spending
is Army General V.M. Shabanov, deputy minister of defense
for armaments. Even before Gorbachev came into office
Shabanov had written of the importance to defense of the
overall health of the economy, although the example he cited
— the crucial role of the home front in the victory over Nazi
Germany — might not seem particularly relevant to current
Soviet security concerns. More recently he has argued that
the USSR’s shift to a defensive doctrine of “reasonable suf-
ficiency” would permit a reduction in resources allocated to
the military and a consequent improvement in the economy.
In an interview with the Washington Post, he claimed that the
USSR had already begun to reduce its military spending,
starting in 1986,'4

All the same, Shabanov does not fit the image of a new
thinker very well. During most of his career he has been in-
volved in the development and testing of new weapons and
is surely one of the USSR’s most prominent military tech-
nologists. He told the Washington Post that the USSR would
not continue to restrain its military spending in the absence
of U.S. reciprocation and that we should expect to see yet
another modernization of the SS-18 missile. One small bit of
“kremlinological” evidence on Shabanov’s true views is the
difference in the titles of two of his articles, published exact-
ly three years apart, before and during Gorbachev’s tenure,
respectively. The first was called “Reliable Shield of the

11 M. Iasiukov, “Voennaia politika KPSS: sushchnost’, soderzhanie,” Kommunist Vooruzhennykh Sil, No. 20 (October 1985), pp. 14-21., at p. 20.
12 V.A. Zubkov, “Zabota KPSS ob ukreplenii ekonomicheskikh osnov voennoi moshchi sotsialisticheskogo gosudarstva,” Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal, No.

3 (1986), pp. 3-8.

13 “XX VII s”ezd KPSS 0 dal’neishem ukreplenii oboronosposobnosti strany i povyshenii boevoi gotovnosti Vooruzhennykh Sil,” Voenno-istoricheskii

zhurnal, No. 4 (1986), pp. 3-12.

14 V. Shabanov, “Nadezhnyi shchit Rodiny,” Ekonomicheskaia gazeta, No. 8 (February 1985), p. 5; “Shchit Rodiny,” Ekonomicheskaia gazeta, No. 8
(February 1988), p. 18. R. Jeffrey Smith, “Arms Budget Cut, Soviet Says,” Washington Post, July 27, 1988, pp. Al, Alg.

Homeland;” the second was simply “Shield of the
Homeland.” Perhaps Shabanov has some doubts about the
reliability of Soviet defense under Gorbachev’s new think-
ing. The new thinkers, in turn, probably conclude that
Shabanov is not the most reliable ally they could want in the
Soviet military.

The Civilians’ Not-So-Hidden Agenda

What if, contrary to the argument presented here, there
were a Strong military constituency for short-term restraint in
military spending? Would they become the allies of the
presumably most loyal supporters of Gorbachev’s reforms,
the intelligentsiia? If it were true that the civilian critics of
high military spending really wanted to divert resources to
the civilian sector only temporarily, in order to strengthen the
foundations for future military programs, there might be some
basis for a deal. In fact, it seems far more likely that the critics
favor civilian development for its own sake and would always
view military claims as unwarranted. Even Burlatskii, who
deliberately linked his critique of the USSR’s technological
backwardness to security concerns, actually takes a rather
dim view of military solutions to Soviet security problems,
including technocratic ones, as his writing both during and
after the Brezhnev era reveals.

The impression of civilian resistance to military interests
is reinforced by the sharp criticisms that a number of
prominent scientists and politicians have levied at military re-
search and development (R&D) — the key to future weapons
innovations — and from their overall views about the military
and the changing nature of security. In June 1986, for ex-
ample, shortly after his appointment as Central Committee
secretary in charge of international affairs, Anatolii Dobrynin
explicitly criticized military R&D, including its supposedly
beneficial effects on civilian technology. 1 Dobrynin argued
that new weapons complicate arms negotiations, that “quick
changes in military technology lead objectively to the ap-
pearance of such types and systems that can make verifica-
tion of limitations and reduction of armaments unthinkably
difficult, even impossible.” Rapid innovation also contributes
to a deterioration of relations and an atmosphere of distrust.
Dobrynin dismissed the notion that such programs as the U.S.
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) would “guarantee a new
breakthrough in the area of technology” or “give a stimulus
to the development of scientific thought.”

InaJuly 1986 meeting with Soviet and foreign scientists,
Mikhail Gorbachev devoted a large portion of his remarks,
subsequently printed in Pravda, to the same point. He argued
that “it is said that SDI is the path to the development of
science, to new heights of scientific-technical progress. But
is it true,” he asked, “that we can’t move science and technol-

Matthew Evangelista

ogy, all the components of scientific knowledge, including
the creation of new materials, radio-electronics, mathematics
and so forth by carrying out peaceful projects?” He then went
into great detail, listing the advances that had been achieved
through international scientific cooperation in such areas as
space exploration, concluding that the “argument that science
and technology can be developed only with the help of an
arms race is an absurd argument.”!/

The strongest case against military R&D appeared in the
Party’s theoretical journal Kommunist in October 1986.
Nuclear physicist Lev Feoktistov wrote of the “prejudice that
unfortunately has so far dominated the consciousness of a
good deal of people, including scientists and politicians” to
the effect that war and military production are “the com-
panions, the accelerators, and even the sources of scientific-
technical progress.” Much like Dobrynin’s observations
about the arms race, Feoktistov’s criticisms of the products
of military research do not appear to exclude the USSR: He
describes the major weapons of the postwar period as “‘an im-
pressive spectacle of the concentration and material embodi-
ment of the accomplishments of science, the human intellect,
talent, and labor! An impressive spectacle, but at the same
time a bitter one: indeed, intellect, talent, and labor expended
essentially in vain, or even for human harm.” Such remarks
doubtless would not please the Soviet military, whose efforts
Feoktistov describes as wasted at best.

Feoktistov specifically criticizes claims for the benefits
of civilian “spin-off” (obkhodnoi put’ )from military research,
arguing that Japan’s emphasis on civilian over military R&D
accounts for its success in rivaling the U.S. for preeminence
in microelectronics. In a section of his article that appears
directly to address a Soviet audience, he argues that “the sig-
nificance of the military sector for civilian production is often
exaggerated, and their relationship to each other is wrongly
interpreted. Contrary to the widespread view, the military
sphere much more often borrows from the civilian than the
other way around.” He observes that the hope that “results of
military research and development will be able to find wide
application in civilian sectors is essentially unfounded... For
what civilian purposes,” he asks, “would one need an aircraft
with variable-geometry wings, flying at supersonic speeds,
hiding from radar, at the very surface of the ground; or a laser
cannon, destroying targets at a distance of thousands of
kilometers?”!®

Feoktistov appears to be straddling the outer limits of the
debate on military R&D in the Soviet Union. Yet he must
have received high-level political sanction in order to publish
in Kommunist. If prominent members of Gorbachev’s reform
coalition sympathize with such views they are unlikely to
want to divert resources to an ambitious high-tech military

15 See, e.g., F.M. Burlatskii, “Filosofiia mira,” Voprosy filosofii, No. 12 (1982), pp. 57-66; Burlatskii, “Brezhnev i krushenie ottepeli,” Literaturnaia gazeta,

September 14, 1988, pp. 13-14.

16 A. Dobrynin, “Za bez” iadernyi mir, navstrechu XXI veku,” Kommunist, No. 9 (June 1986), pp. 18-31, at p. 20. Bx
17 “Vstrecha M.S. Gorbacheva s predstaviteliami mezhdunarodnogo foruma uchenykh za prekrashchenie iadernykh ispytanii,” Pravda, July 15, 1986.
18 L. Feoktistov, “Gonka vooruzhenii, voina i nauchno-tekhnicheskii progress nesovmestimy!” Kommunist, No. 15 (October 1986), pp. 97-106.

The Harriman Institute Forum

buildup, even assuming the Soviet economy revives at some
point in the indefinite future.

The evidence of anti-military sentiment among reform-
oriented intellectuals, although fragmentary, is nonetheless
striking. In a joint Soviet-American survey of 100 Soviet ex-
perts on international relations, including journalists,
diplomats, and academics, 33% denied the existence of an
“American threat,” 73% agreed with the statement that the
“scrupulous maintenance of parity between the USSR and
USA is meaningless” and only slightly more than half of the
respondents believed that the Soviet Union’s possession of
nuclear weapons served the maintenance of peace. The vast
majority of respondents felt that “the most effective means
for ensuring the USSR’s security” was political or economic,
whereas only a minority (17%) favored reliance on military
means.!

The taboo on criticizing the Soviet military clearly has
been lifted and the anti-military attitude of some pro-reform
intellectuals is becoming increasingly evident. Journalists
have criticized the military for its decision to develop and
deploy the SS-20 missile, and have chastised the Ministry of
Defense for its excessive secrecy and argued that “it may well
have its own mercenary interests, like many other ministries
whose arbitrariness has damaged the economy.””” Ina similar
fashion, Academician Roald Sagdeev, former director of the
Institute of Space Research and a prominent Gorbachev ad-
viser, criticized military secrecy and alluded to a Soviet
“military-industrial complex, [which] demands more and
more money.””! Evgenii Chazov, the minister of health, im-
plicitly criticized Soviet military spending in his speech to the
19th Party Conference in July 1988, when he expressed his
hope that the military would give up the value of “at least a
few aircraft carriers or a hundred missiles” in order to help
fund the Soviet health-care system.”

Potential Coalitions

Given their views on the military, scientists such as Feok-
tistov, Velikhov, Sagdeev, and their colleagues are not like-

ly to take well to demands that “basic and exploratory re-
search [be] directed toward the invention of promising
military systems,” even when issued by supposed military
reformers.”> For their part, the military will be justifiably
suspicious that if they yield to demands for short-term
restraint in military spending, the restraints will become per-
manent and they will never see their favored high-tech
weapons. If the prospects are bleak for a coalition between
new-thinking scientists and intellectuals, on the one hand, and
reform-oriented military officers, on the other, what are the
chances that the more dominant military views will prevail?

Old thinkers are probably quite common in the Soviet
military today, although their agenda for wide-scale
mobilization and militarization of the Soviet economy stands
little chance of implementation. It suffered a major setback
in the mid-1970s, when the Brezhnev leadership evidently
succeeded in restraining the growth of military spending to
the same (sluggish) rate as the economy as a whole. Military
procurement apparently remained flat, especially in the
strategic nuclear realm, as older systems were retired and new
ones deployed only up to the limits imposed by the SALT ac-
cords. At the same time, the political leaders insisted that
military industries produce more goods for the civilian sec-
tor.”* Under present economic conditions, it is unlikely that
the old thinkers could succeed in promoting policies for a
large-scale militarization of the civilian economy and for an
increased stockpiling of weapons and raw materials.

The technocratic approach favored by Marshal Ogarkov
may have a better chance of success in the short term. One
would expect to see increasing Soviet efforts to develop the
kinds of high-tech conventional weapons that NATO is
deploying as well as systems intended to respond to the U.S.
Strategic Defense Initiative. The Soviets would probably seek
to overcome the difficulties entailed in developing the
microelectronic and computer technologies that are essential
for the new systems through a vigorous program of industrial
espionage of the sort carried out in the late 1970s.”

This approach is not the one that Gorbachev and his as-
sociates prefer. They appear far more inclined to forestall a

19 Andrei Melville and Alexander Nikitin, “Not Everyone Can Think Alike,” Moscow News, No. 32 (August 14-21, 1988), p. 7. A more extended discussion
of the findings is found in an unpublished paper, “Prospects for a New U.S.-Soviet Relationship: Perceptions of the Soviet Foreign Policy Community,”
by Melville and Nikitin of the USA and Canada Institute, V. Marinov of the Institute of Sociology of the USSR, and Philip D. Stewart of the Ohio State

University.

20 Aleksandr Bovin, “Breakthrough,” Moscow News, No. 10 (March 8-15, 1987), p. 3; Anatoly Akhutin, “Communicate and Take Responsibility,” Moscow

News, No. 30 (July 31-August 7, 1988), p. 3.

21 Roald Sagdeev, “In Search of the Algorithm,” Moscow News, No. 26 (July 3-10, 1988).

22 “Vystuplenie tovarishcha Chazova E.I.,” Pravda, June 30, 1988, p. 4.

23 “XXVII s”ezd KPSS,” p. 8; also Iasiukov, “Voennaia politika KPSS,” p. 20.

24 Richard Kaufman, “Causes of the Slowdown in Soviet Defense Spending,” and comments by John Steinbruner and David Holloway, Soviet Economy,
Vol. I, No. 1 (January-March 1985); Julian Cooper, “The Civilian Production of the Soviet Defence Industry,” chap. 2 in Ronald Amann and Julian
Cooper, eds., Technical Progress and Soviet Economic Development (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986).

25 Henri Regnard (pseud.), “L’URSS et le renseignement scientifique, technique et technologique,” Défense nationale (December 1983), pp. 107-121; and
Soviet Acquisition of Militarily Significant Western Technology: An Update, a report prepared by the C.I.A. and released by the U.S. Department of

Defense in September 1985.

competition with the United States in advanced-technology
weaponry, in favor of securing limitations through arms con-
trol. The USSR has made a number of important concessions
in order to persuade the U.S. to agree to such limitations on
new weapons technologies, and has expressed increasing in-
terest in limiting conventional forces in particular.”° Indeed,
it is on the issue of conventional forces that Gorbachev and
military figures of the Ogarkov school appear to part ways,
and the notion of a consensus between new thinkers and
military technocrats breaks down.’ Ogarkov voiced strong
support for investment in advanced-technology convention-
al weapons, the so-called “weapons based on new physical
principles,” in order to respond to NATO’s technological in-
novations... Yet Gorbachev’s disarmament proposals in-
clude restrictions on such weapons. His decision, announced
December 7, 1988, to cut the Soviet armed forces by 500,000
soldiers, reinforces the impression that Gorbachev intends to
avoid a conventional arms race.””

There is no reason to mistrust Gorbachev’s expressed
desire to focus on internal economic reform rather than exter-
nal military rivalry — the problems of the Soviet economy
could easily occupy his full attention. If, however, he does
not succeed in restraining U.S. military advances through
arms control, Gorbachev would not necessarily be forced to
adopt the approaches of the old thinkers or even the tech-
nocrats. His statements and those of his advisers suggest a
predilection for relatively inexpensive countermeasures to
American systems, rather than costly imitation, and a willing-
ness to forego high-profile, “prestige” weapons that his
predecessors appeared to believe were necessary for the
USSR to maintain its superpower status. Gorbachev has taken
a number of measures to help ensure that his preferences in
security policy prevail.

Gorbachev’s Priorities

Gorbachev seems to be relying on two methods for car-
rying out his security policy. The first is putting people who
share his views or are beholden to him in important positions
of responsibility in the military sphere. The second is recast-
ing the security debate in ways that weaken the arguments of
the old thinkers and technocrats.

Shortly after coming to office, Gorbachev made a num-
ber of personnel changes in the military, replacing much of
the high command, and bringing General Dmitrii Iazov in as

Matthew Evangelista

defense minister over the heads of many higher-ranked of-
ficers. These new appointees do not necessarily share
Gorbachev’s goals entirely, but they now owe their positions
to him. In December, 1988, Marshall Sergei Akhromeev, the
last of the old guard, retired as chief of the General Staff.
Perhaps more significant than his handling of the military
is Gorbachev’s appointment of key civilians to oversee areas
of importance to security policy. Anatolii Dobrynin, for ex-
ample, as head of the Central Committee’s International
Department, endeavored to increase civilian participation in
matters of military policy. He set up a section of his depart-
ment charged with providing an alternative source of infor-
mation on security issues to the political leadership.”
Aleksandr Iakovlev, another Gorbachev protégé, was chosen
to head a new foreign policy commission of the Central Com-
mittee upon Dobrynin’s retirement in September 1988. He is
assumed to consult with a number of academic specialists on
military policy — people he knows from his previous posi-
tion as director of the Institute of the World Economy and In-
ternational Relations (IMEMO) — and he has encouraged
social scientists to play a more active role in analyzing Soviet
military doctrine. ' Within the Foreign Ministry, Eduard
Shevardnadze has established a new Scientific Coordination
Center to provide greater access for academic analysts to the
policy process and he has strongly criticized the excessive
reliance on military power in past Soviet foreign policy.>
On matters related to military technology — and espe-
cially on the question of appropriate Soviet responses to SDI
— Gorbachev appears to rely considerably on highly placed
experts in the Academy of Sciences, such as Evgenii Velik-
hov and Roald Sagdeev. He chose Lev Zaikov, a man who
owes his career to Gorbachev’s direct intervention, to be
Central Committee secretary in charge of overseeing the
military industry. Anatolii Luk’ianov, a close Gorbachev as-
sociate from law school days, is responsible, as head of the
Central Committee’s General Department, for reviewing per-
sonnel decisions of the defense ministry as well as the KGB
and interior ministry. He was recently made a candidate mem-
ber of the Politburo. L.D. Riabev, a specialist on foreign trade
in the Central Committee Secretariat, was named head of the
Ministry of Medium Machine Building, the agency respon-
sible for Soviet nuclear weapons development. He replaced
E.P. Slavskii, who had held the position for 27 years.
Gorbachev’s second means of promoting his preferred
security policy has been to broaden the definition of what con-

26 Matthew Evangelista, “The New Soviet Approach to Security,” World Policy Journal, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Fall 1986), pp. 561-599; Robert Legvold,
“Gorbachev’s New Approach to Conventional Arms Control,” The Harriman Institute Forum, Vol. 1, No. 1 (January 1988); Jack Snyder, “Limiting
Offensive Conventional Forces: Soviet Proposals and Western Options,” /nternational Security, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Spring 1988), pp. 48-77.

27 R. Hyland Phillips and Jeffrey I. Sands, “Reasonable Sufficiency and Soviet Conventional Defense,” /nternational Security, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Fall 1988),

pp. 164-178.

28 “Zashchita sotsializma: opyt istorii i sovremennost’,” Krasnaia zvezda, May 9, 1984; see also his remarks at a meeting of the Party aktiv of the Soviet
Ministry of Defense, reprinted in Krasnaia zvezda, June 22, 1983; and Istoriia uchit bditel’ nosti, p. 25.

29 The New York Times, December 8, 1988.

30 Dobrynin, “Za bez” iadernyi mir,” pp. 25-28. For a useful discussion of this issue, see Pat Litherland, Gorbachev and Arms Control: Civilian Experts and
Soviet Policy, Peace Research Report Number 12, School of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, England, November 1986.

31 A. Iakovlev, “Dostizhenie kachestvenno novogo sostoianiia Sovetskogo obshchestva i obshchestvennye nauki,” Kommunist, No. 8 (May 1987), pp. 17-19.

32 “Doklad E.A. Shevardnadze,” Vestnik Ministerstva Inostrannykh Del SSSR, No. 15, August 15, 1988, pp. 27-46.

The Harriman Institute Forum

stitutes “security.”” He has emphasized the economic com-
ponent of national security to such an extent that the military
proponents of mobilization are automatically put at a disad-
vantage. Further, by criticizing the argument that military
R&D can benefit civilian technology, Gorbachev has put the
military technocrats on the defensive as well.

Gorbachev has implied that he sees economic reform as
the most important response that the USSR can make to new
American weapons developments, SDI in particular. In an in-
terview in September 1986 with the Czechoslovak newspaper
Rudé pravo that was widely reprinted in the Soviet press, Gor-
bachev called attention to American “attempts to undermine
the USSR economically by means of an arms race.” He ar-
gued that “we will do everything so as not to allow this mali-
cious plan to come true,” by acting “above all” on the
economic level. If we are weak economically, he argued, “the
pressure from the enemies of socialism intensifies.” But, if
“we become stronger, more solid economically, and on the
social and political level, the interest of the capitalist world
in normal relations with us will grow.”

Gorbachev’s Prospects

Gorbachev’s preferred strategy in the military sphere is
to limit the costly Soviet-American competition in weapons
technology through arms control agreements with the United
States. Failing to secure such agreements, he would not neces-
sarily revert to the previous Soviet approach of trying first to
counter, then to develop and produce in large number, most
American innovations. Nor would he necessarily be forced to
adopt wholesale the policies of the old thinkers or tech-
nocrats. It is possible, though, that his optimal approach to
dealing with American weapons developments, in the wake
of the failure of his arms-control efforts, would combine ele-
ments of each group’s agenda. As the technocrats advocate,
Gorbachev would continue a vigorous military research ef-
fort, in order that the USSR not be taken by surprise by an
American breakthrough. This effort would also provide a

| The Harriman Institute Forum is published monthly by
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| Editor: Paul Lerner
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basis for a program of countermeasures that could be less ex-
pensive than imitating the American weapons. Soviet inter-
est in inexpensive means to offset U.S. weapons has received
a good deal of attention in regard to strategic defenses, but
the Soviets are undoubtedly also developing such means to
meet the challenge of new American reconnaissance and tar-
get-acquisition systems, terminally-guided missiles, and so
forth. Some of the approaches, such as electronic counter-
measures, would appeal to the technocrats. Others, such as
mass production of decoys, camouflage, and dispersal, might
be more congenial to the traditional military preferences of
the old thinkers.

It is impossible to predict the course of future Soviet
security policy, especially since it depends in part on actions
of the United States. It seems clear, however, that Gorbachev,
his civilian associates, and his science advisers favor a
program of domestic economic reform coupled with arms
control efforts to limit competition in military technology.
They might be able to form a coalition with those military of-
ficers, however few, who recognize that security must be
defined by more than military power. But Gorbachev will dis-
appoint those who would like to see economic reform put to
the service of anew high-tech arms race. If his strategy proves
infeasible, Gorbachev could adopt some aspects of proposals
advocated by other sectors of the military. In any case, it is
clear that Gorbachev has altered the terms of the Soviet debate
on security in such a way as to limit the likelihood of a return
to the military policies pursued by the Soviet Union during
the 1970s. By embracing a concept of national security that
gives precedence to economic strength, he has sought to rule
out a major weapons build-up and a technological arms race
in favor of a healthy domestic economy.

Matthew Evangelista teaches Soviet and international
politics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and is
the author of Innovation and the Arms Race: How the
United States and the Soviet Union Develop New Military
Technologies (Cornell University Press).

33 Interview published in the Soviet press as “Otvety M.S. Gorbacheva na voprosy glavnogo redaktora gazety ‘Rudé pravo’ tovarishcha Zdeneka Gorzheni,”

Krasnaia zvezda, September 9, 1986, p. 1, and other newspapers.

8